Self Portrait

Filter effects are one of my favorite things to do to edit a photograph or graphic, because there are so many different facets you can go into, sort of like my personality. I'm very pleased on how this self portrait came out; it has even become my profile picture of FaceBook.

To get my face copied nine times, and edit each individually, I first had to open the original image and use the ellipse select tool to crop it. I copied and pasted it into a new project, where I erased most of the background. I then copied that image and created a new, nine layer image, with one face per layer. If they were all on one layer, they would have all looked the same.

My personal favorite is the first column, second row image. It was the filter called Alien Glow. There were so many different color settings, but the colors I chose look very vibrant and bright, without having to adjust any saturation settings.

Candy

Experimenting with typography was fun, because words can take on the appearance of what the actually are describing. Although the word "sour" does not look exactly like a Sour Patch Kid, I still believe it looks sour!

I first selected a bold yet playful font. I then added a drop shadow, to make it really stand out. I also applied a Script-Fu called Starburst in a lime green shade, a typical sour color. This made the text really lively and added a sort of shock value to it - sort of like when you first bite in to a sour candy.

Rain or Shine

Something simple and straight-forward: abstract art.

Using basic shapes, I decided to give a little weather forecast for this week.

The yellow triangles represent the sun, energetic and strong. The other yellow and light green circles represent the overall weather, hot but not completely unbearable, as circles are the most friendly shape. But then, there are navy blue rectangular accents. These show the jutting, almost ruining times when it is raining, almost flooding.

Creating this image was fairly simple, just selections and bucket fills. But actually conceptualizing the piece, and choosing a color scheme took nearly as much thought as one of the more difficult compositions in my portfolio.

Artsy Nature

I chose to do another juxtaposed image, using a simple, landscape photograph and an ornate, architectural picture.

Probably to best way to show juxtaposition in digital photography and graphics is to create a double exposure, which is fairly easy.

First, I opened both images. I adjusted the saturation and brightness of the landscape photo to mimic the brightness of the architecture photo. I then selected the image of the building, copied it, and pasted it as a new layer on top of the mountain image. I then lowered the opacity of the new layer, and scaled it to align correctly on top of the background image.

I did not notice it until I saved the image, but both images have similar qualities that make them mesh well, instead of being complete opposites. The lower half of the pictures have a grainy, yellow texture. The mountains and the roof of the building both are a dark blue hue, and rounded.

Up

The sky looked beautiful the other day, so I naturally took a picture of it. With a picture so simple like this, I could have done a variety of different effects on it. But I chose to first crop it, because there were a few distracting trees in the corner. I also brightened the picture, to make the colors softer.

Then I began to play around with the different filter effects, until I settled on one called Cubism. Cubism had a very interesting effect on this image, because it is very versatile. In one value, it made the clouds appear cartoon-like. I would have chosen the cartoon clouds, if there were perhaps a bird in the sky as well. But I adjusted the values and got a much more artistic, painter-like outcome on the clouds.

I'm pleased with this project because it shows how the smallest tweak of a value can drastically change an image. The filter itself even changes! This image almost looks as if someone had painted it in the Impressionism style!

The Wiz

I thought it would be fun to make a composite image using my face, and three friends, on top of classic movie character, from The Wizard of Oz.

For each of the transfers, I had to open each person's head (image, that is!) and create a duplicate layer. I then deleted the original, and erased the background of each image. For the tin man's face, I had to take it one step further and adjust the saturation, to make his skin grey.

I then selected each of the heads and pasted them as new layers on the character image. For each individual layer, I adjusted the opacity to 60%, so I could better align the images. I also scaled the images to fit, and then erased whatever was left over.

Knowing how to create a composite image is a pretty neat skill to have, since you can make it appear as if you are someone, or somewhere, that you really aren't!

Although, I hope people do not abuse this skill...

Flamenco

This piece I originally created during the "semester", but I really like how it came out. I took the image of a flamenco dress and traced it.

I first had to add a transparent layer over the original image to draw my outlines and fill in the actual dress, since I did not want to draw right on top of the original image.

I found it to be easier and more time efficient to use the free select tool and bucket fill, than to try to use the paintbrush for the entire drawing. It was also easier, and more appealing, to use the ellipse select tool to create the polka dots, instead of making uneven circles by hand.

Although my project is not 100% identical to the original image, I feel that this better captures the spirit and liveliness of flamenco, which is what this dress was created for. The color is vivid and saturated, and the polka dots and ruffles are fun, like a fiesta.